Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1887-09-08
LOCAL OPTION.

LOCAL OPTION.
Letter From Senator George G. Vest Civ
ing His Opinion of the Local Option Law,
the Same Subject.
SWEET SPRINGS. Mo-, Aug. %.
IL. +. Staple, Esq, Rockpurt, NO.:
My DEAR SIR-Yours Of the 22d inst,
inclosing copy of the Local Option law
enacted by the General Assembly just adj
journed, and also the opinion of Senator
Wood, its author, upon that clause of the
law regulating sales of alcohol by drug.
gists, has just been received. You ask my
opinion of the statute generally, and for
my construction of the specific provisions
as to sales by druggists.
I have read the law and the opinion very
carefully, and 1 will answer your last
question first.
1t seems to me beyond discussion that
the Legislature intended to prohibit in
any county adopting local option the sale
by any person of any intoxicating liquors,
except "wine for sacramental purposes, or
pure alcohol for medicinal. art, scientific
or mechanical purposes"
The law is undoubtedly intended to pre-
vent the traffic absolutely and not to
drive it from the saloons to the drug
stores. If any county in Missouri adopts
local option, no druggist can sell intoxi-
eating liquors, except as above specified.
The construction put by Senator Wood
upon this clause is unquestienably COR
rect.
Your other question embraces a very
wide field of inquiry, and has excited
much acrimonious discussion. 1 approach
it with no prejudice for or against any
class or property interests affected, and
without Interior objects, personal or po-
litical. 1t seems to me that the truth in
this, as in many vexed controversies, will
be found between two extremes. On the
one hand are the Prohibitonists denounc-
ing the sale of liquor as murder, and every
man who opposes constitutional prohibit
ton as irreligious, immoral and accessory
to crime.
On the others hand are the advocates of
free whisky and the removal of all re-
straint upon the traffic, so that the saloons
may be treated as blessings to the COM
munity.
1 agree with neither, and am opposed to
both. Whether the craving for nervous
stimulants be natural or unnatural, it is
enough to know that it is found wherever
our race exists. Its forms are protean,
varying with climate and production, but
no matter what the agent employed to
crafty the appetite, excess is invariably
accompanied by suffering, disease and
death. The grosser types, such as drunk
enneSs from alcohol, and the crime by
which it is often accompanied, naturally
and necessarily attract the attention of
the legislator and philanthropist more than
others, but there can be little doubt that
excess in the use of tobacco, coffee and the
various anasthetics, such as morphia and
cocaine, silently but surely claim an equal
more noisy colleague.
The mistake of the ultra Prohibitionists
is in the assumption that there is any
thing immoral or irreligious per Sc in the
use of stimulants; but they are logically
driven to this in order to sustain the
sweeping measure of constitutional pro-
hibltion. They make no distinction be-
tween the sale or use of Intoxicating
liquors and murder, arson or robbery. All
are crimes, and ought, therefore, to he
punished, not only by statutory law, but
by constitutional enactment. They for
get that the universal conscience of man.
kind, together with the Divine law, pro-
hibit murder, arson and robbery; but
what can be said of the intelligence which
puts in the same category with the MUIR
derer, incendiary or robber, the merchant
who uses wine with every meal, OF the
mechanic who has beer upon his
frugal board? The statement of
such proposition should be
its answer; but we have this nom
sense from the pulpit and the rostrum with
fulminations lay and ecclesiastic, against
any man as a drunkard and infidel who
who dares to contradict.
Now 1 respectfully enter denial. do
not use stimulants Of any sort, and am an
humble and devout believer, yet have no
e.
difference between the man who makes or
sells or drinks Intoxicating liquor, and the
man who commits felony.
1t is not strange that the same confusion
of ideas should exist with the same per-
sons, to the police jurisdiction of the
State in regard to the liquor traffic.
Assuming that the manufacture and use
of stimulants constitute crime, they pro-
pose, as they have done in Kansas, and as
they lately attempted in Texas, to pro-
hibit by constitutional enactment,
the manufacture of intoxicating liquors
except for medicinal, mechanical or
scientific purposes" or in other words,
to prohibit the citizen from manufacturing
such liquor for his own use, without any
attempt or design on his part to sell or
give away to others. 1t is manifest that
this is not legitimate exercise of the po-
lice power, but direct invasion of per-
sonal and reserved rights which every
free government must respect. Under
any form of government, except absolute
despotism, the citizen is the exclusive
Judge of what he shall eat or drink, and
not until he attempts to sell or give away
to others can the State interfere. To hold
otherwise, would be to put the habits,
tastes, and even the opinions of the citi-
zen under the control of arbitrary legis-
with sumptuary laws
We often hear from Prohibitionists that
there is no difference between prohibition
and local option, but it requires little re-
Election to find most important and marked
distinction.
The former ignores entirely the vital
principles of our free institutions-local
self government. This accounts for the
fact that in the States having constitu-
tional prohibition the licenses to retail
liquor required by the United States rev.
enue laws have been steadily increased,
notwithstanding the State prohibition. In
the rural communities where public senti-
ment sustains the law, it is enforced, but
in the towns and cities where it is most
needed, public sentiment is either against
prohibition, or so equally divided that it
becomes dead letter. This is the over
whelming testimony of all familiar with
the condition of affairs in Maine, includ-
ing Neal Dow, the father of the prohibition
dogma If the selling or using intoxicating
liquors belor.,sd to the same class of
offenses with robbery or murder, it
would be monstrous to think that in
any town or city of Maine, or of any other
State, the law could not be enforced. In
truth and IN fact the prohibition enact
ment is regarded simply as an exercise Of
the police power based upon public policy,